This invention relates to a bluntly pointed tongue marking tag for banded merchandise, to a composite of banded merchandise with the bluntly pointed tongue marker affixed thereto, and to a method for affixing the new bluntly pointed tongue marking tag to banded merchandise.
The banding of merchandise into clumps of the size desired by consumers is well known and widely practiced. The band may consist of rubber or twist tie or string and may be about one or more boxes or about clumps of merchandise or about rolled or folded merchandise such as a newspaper. A particularly popular and well-known practice is that of banding clumps of agricultural produce for easy handling in supply channels and attractive display to consumers.
The marking of banded clumps with the necessary information for inventory control and accuracy of processing by scanning (as at supermarket check-out counters), as well as for attractiveness of display for the consumer, has received an enormous amount of attention and has led to the development of marking tags having varied styles of hooks and varied slits and holes or openings or orifices for receiving the band material. The known varied styles of tags having hooks, however, are associated with a single orifice and cause a tag on the banded merchandise to be in an angular relationship with respect to the band. Known dual-orifice or dual-hole or dual-opening marking tags for affixing to a band about merchandise without causing an angular position for the tag with respect to the band have suffered from the problem of being difficult or tedious to affix to the band. They require the exercise of too much effort and skill and labor time to get properly fixed on the band. A still further known tag has been one that lacks holes or orifices and simply has a three-sided cut with all of the sides at right angles to each other. It is easily dislodged from the band about merchandise, which makes it unreliable as a marker.
The present invention solves the problem of quick tag affixation to the band about merchandise and does this in combination with maintaining at least one face of the tag in flush condition with the merchandise rather than projecting at an angle out from the band, thereby permitting scannability of the composite marked merchandise by simply grabbing the merchandise with one hand and moving it over a scanner instead of using two hands, one to grab the merchandise and the other to hold the tag while it is moved over the scanner at a check-out counter.